


True Colours

by sanguinity



Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Neck Kissing, Relationship Negotiation, Service
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 11:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15436407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: Hornblower has a difficult time granting himself even small moments of happiness; Bush would very much like to see that change."Then let me love you, sir. Let that be one of my virtues: loving you, when you yourself cannot."





	True Colours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ColebaltBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColebaltBlue/gifts).



> For ColebaltBlue, who wanted neck kisses.
> 
> Set after _Flying Colours,_ without regard to later canon. 
> 
> Many thanks to rachelindeed for beta, and dancesontrains for Britpick!

Thucydides lay open in his lap, but Hornblower was not in Peloponnesus; he was at the other end of the Mediterranean, in Rosas Bay, on the deck of the _Sutherland_ again. Death rained around him; young Longley and all his talent lay smashed to a red pulp. Dimly he heard the step and _thunk_ of Bush on his crutch behind him, but rather than taking comfort in his presence, Hornblower shuddered at the unmistakable reminder that even the blameless Bush had suffered for Hornblower's—

Lips brushed his neck, and he jerked, blinking. For a moment he was all confusion, attempting to untangle what strand of the memory of the _Sutherland_ he could have mistaken for a kiss. Or, barring that, what gesture of Bush's he could have mistaken — a touch of his hand, perhaps? And yet it had been, undeniably, a kiss.

Kisses from Bush were rare but not unknown, not since those two wild nights in Kingston so long ago. But Bush's kisses were invariably direct and passionate — if a certain tenderness had infused them since their winter and spring on the Loire, he and Bush did not speak of it. However, fierce or tender, kisses were exchanged with Bush in the dark of night, during those stolen hours when Hornblower sometimes permitted himself to revel in Bush's strength, in his solidity, his devotion, before the advent of the morning's crushing self-recriminations. Last night had been one such night; this morning, one such morning.

This kiss, however— There was no precedent for this gentle daylight ambush.

He turned to look at Bush, a hand lifting to his neck before he stifled the gesture.

Bush stood impeccably upright, his crutch held lightly by his side for balance. Hornblower read courage on that broad and homely face, courage and determination, and something so achingly raw and open— He baulked to give it a name. 

"You were thinking, sir," Bush said, as punctilious as ever, despite having been so impetuous as to press a kiss, uninvited, to a senior captain's neck.

"I was reading," Hornblower corrected.

"Respectfully, sir, you were not." 

The flat contradiction was even more shocking than the kiss had been. Hornblower's first instinct was to slap it down, and had they been on his own quarterdeck, captain and lieutenant, he would have. But Bush was a post captain now, and they were in his own home in Sheerness. And he had been correct: Hornblower had not been reading, not for some while. 

"No," he grudgingly agreed, "I was not."

Bush's expression softened. "No, sir. I thought you needed taking out of yourself, sir."

Hornblower stared at him.

"You use yourself badly, when you get to thinking, sir. It's not right."

"What I think about is hardly your concern, Captain Bush."

Hornblower regretted indulging him earlier, because Bush had the bit between his teeth now. "It is the concern of the people who love you, sir." 

There was a peculiar pleasure in that notion, most certainly, but pique, too, that Bush would persist in his illusions about him. The man knew him as well as anyone alive, and was nevertheless steadfast in his devotion. It was enough to make one think him as easily influenced by poses and pretenses as crews, crowds, or _The Times._ "Not much of a list, that," Hornblower scoffed, turning back to his book. 

But he could feel the indignation pouring off Bush.

"Do you think so little of me, sir?" he asked quietly.

To his consternation, Hornblower found that he could not bring himself to wound the man. Not after the night before and his lingering, bewildered pleasure that a man so capable and splendid could regard him with such deep affection; nor even after this morning and the simple joy of waking in Bush's arms. The sensation had been transitory, the usual self-excoriations inevitably creeping in with the daylight, but for a short while, Bush's warm arm across his chest had reminded him of a dozen other precious mornings when he had counted himself blessed to wake so. To deliberately kick the man today, without regard to the previous night or to the myriad abuses and indignities Bush patiently suffered at Hornblower's hands… The thought was unbearable. The knowledge that he might have done so on another morning was even worse.

"On the contrary. You are— You have many virtues, virtues I only aspire to." Words did not suffice.

Bush was silent. Then he stumped around the settee — even with the crutch, his movement had become so deft since his first lurching, dizzying steps on the Loire — and he seated himself beside Hornblower. He lay the crutch aside and took away Hornblower's book, then reached for his neck, insinuating his fingers beneath the curls of his club. His grip was pitiless in its tenderness. "Then let me love you, sir. Let that be one of my virtues: loving you, when you yourself cannot."

Hornblower shut his eyes rather than meet that steady gaze. "Captain Bush. Such words force me to question your judgement."

"I'm wounded, sir." There was a smile in Bush's voice. "I understood you looked to me for my good judgement." 

Hornblower laughed; he looked to Bush for his capability and dependability, but never the evaluation of a plan or the fine discrimination of chances, and they both knew it. Bush's strong hand tilted his head, and then Bush was kissing him, deep and tender. Hornblower felt as if he had slipped his cable, yawing and adrift.

He disliked the sensation. "You do not know me as well as you believe," he snapped when the kiss ended, reaching for aloof disdain. And yet he did not pull away. "And I'm not capable of love in return." 

"I didn't ask for your love, sir. I asked that you accept mine." Bush turned Hornblower's head to the side and kissed down his neck, featherlight grazes of lips and tongue and teeth.

It was a monumental request, impossible to grant, and yet just as impossible to reject. He hung in stays for a long moment, shuddering at the feel of Bush's mouth on his neck. But Hornblower was fundamentally ill-designed for inaction, and if neither tack served, he could always run downwind.

"William," he said, and took advantage of Bush's surprise to push him back. He climbed up over Bush's lap; Bush obligingly lay back under him. "Sir," Bush answered, his hips lifting.

"Don't call me sir," Hornblower said, and as Bush pressed his lips together, he realised he had effectively ordered Bush into silence. But it was as well; it would end that intolerable conversation about love. 

Bush was silent, but his eyes still spoke his devotion. Hornblower could not bear the sight of it, so he turned Bush's face to the side — Bush allowed it, as he allowed everything — and set his teeth firmly to Bush's neck.

 

Bush seemed content to lie quietly after, but Hornblower was restless, the usual recriminations swallowing him faster than ever. He had ill-used Bush in distracting him with such base pleasures, and he was keenly aware of it. Bush deserved better of him, and would get it.

Again, he was startled by Bush's lips at his neck. "Thinking, sir," Bush reproved. The same fixed courage as before showed in Bush's expression, and it unsettled Hornblower that Bush should bring such determination to a gesture that Maria had once bestowed so thoughtlessly. 

"Ha—h'm," he answered, from force of long habit.

But that was familiar territory for Bush; he lay back, his expression fond. "As you say, sir."

Hornblower swore, certain he was being laughed at, and got out of bed.

Bush blanked his expression, but his eyes still twinkled. "Aye aye, sir."

Hornblower refused to dignify that with cursing again, and instead donned and belted his dressing gown, then searched through his valise for the jar he had put there. Finding it, he returned to sit on the bed. "Let's see your stump, if you please," he said, pushing back the blankets. He had not seen it properly since the Loire.

Hornblower had bought the salve on a whim, painfully aware that Bush no longer needed his care. Hornblower was sincerely grateful for that, for he had barely borne Bush's suffering on that hellish journey to Paris. And yet, standing alone before the window of a Portsmouth apothecary, knowing Bush's health and future well secured in Sheerness, Hornblower had longed for the singular satisfaction of caring for Bush's needs again. He had been too shy to produce the jar on his arrival the night before, but now he was irritable and discontented and cared little for Bush's opinion.

"It's very well, sir, thank you," Bush said, coming up to his elbows. At a gesture, he consented to put his stump into Hornblower's hands. "You see it's healed up a treat."

In point of fact, Hornblower noted with dismay, it was reddened and irritated, subtly discoloured by bruising. Bush had been experimenting with a new leg when Hornblower had arrived in Sheerness, one that affixed at the stump instead of the knee, and while it gave Bush more dexterity and smoothness of motion, it obviously transmitted a portion of the weight of standing and walking to the stump itself. The limb was not used to such abuse; it was little wonder that Bush had reached for his crutch this morning, his empty trouser leg folded and pinned neatly beside his knee.

Hornblower took up some salve from the jar. "Is it tender?"

"No, sir." And then, at Hornblower's stern look, "Not to speak of, sir."

Gently, Hornblower smoothed the salve into Bush's much abused skin. 

"Sir," Bush protested, and his stump twitched in Hornblower's hands. But Bush did not pull away, nor was the distress on his face physical. "Sir, truly, you did me great honour when I was ill. But you needn't concern yourself, it's quite well now."

Hornblower's thumbs continued to work; even now, through this simple office, some of the peace of the journey down the Loire had begun to return to him. He did not wish to relinquish it. 

"If I am asked to accept your love," he said, aware of the calculated strategy in giving Bush's own words back to him, "then it's only fitting that you should accept mine." He was well-practiced in such declarations; during his marriage to Maria, he had often deliberately given her back her own words so that she would not feel hurt and unloved. Interestingly, he did not now feel the hollowness of false colours that he had so often felt with her. He shied from examining the sensation, for once jealously protective of the moment as it was.

Bush went mulishly silent, undoubtedly battling with the discomfort of a proposed reciprocity between himself and his erstwhile captain. Hornblower moved to the muscles of Bush's thigh. This leg was much atrophied compared to the other, and yet its muscles were knotted tight; the new leg, affixing below the knee as it did, greatly taxed muscles that had not been used in so long. Bush stifled a groan and lay back.

Hornblower continued to knead the muscles of Bush's thigh, and after directing Bush to turn, his buttock and back. Bush lay beneath him, nominally accepting of the service, and yet still subtly tense. Hornblower brushed Bush's hair away from his shoulder — his club had come partly undone earlier — and found himself contemplating Bush's bared neck. Remembering Bush's own gesture, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to it. 

"Sir," Bush breathed, and he tilted his head into the pillow, baring his neck further. Hornblower kissed it again. But disquiet filled him. He had expected the gesture to be an empty echo of Bush's earlier gesture to him, and yet he felt a steady, alarming warmth in his stomach. He touched Bush's nape, then the long scar down his back — left by a Spanish sabre, when they were both lieutenants. Hornblower had found Bush lying in his own blood on the _Renown's_ deck, half-fainting from his wounds; Hornblower had brought Bush a pineapple when he lay in hospital in Kingston. Hornblower had been nearly too shy to speak on that occasion, overcome by— He did not know what he had been overcome by.

"Sir," Bush said. He was sitting up and facing Hornblower, watching him with that tender and knowing expression. Bush leaned in and pressed a kiss to Hornblower's lips, then another along his jaw. Hornblower closed his eyes and let him.

"Thinking?" Hornblower asked, turning his face to graze Bush's neck, close under his jaw. Bush's skin rasped finely against his lips; the discomfiting warmth still glowed in his stomach.

"Thinking," Bush confirmed. "We can’t have that." And he pressed another kiss to Hornblower's neck.


End file.
